College Years

Like many veterans, after the war my father took advantage of the G.I. Bill and went to college. He decided on Syracuse Univerisity and, initially, focused on Law as his major. Once bitten by the theatre bug though, he was a goner. At first, there was not enough room for all the incoming students on the Syracuse campus so my father spent his first year of college at the Syracuse satelite campus up in Utica, New York. Later though he was able to move to the main campus and it was there that he met Sawyer Falk, Professor of Drama and head of the drama department. Throughout his career my father worked with many talented and, some might say, famous people. There was a handful though whom my father truly revered and credited with having helped shape him as an artist and theatre professional. Sawyer Falk was in that very elite circle. It was Falk who saw the raw talent and the promise in my father. As my father often told me, "To have the chance to play Robert Browning and speak those glorious words, and then to become evil personified and play Iago opposite a talent like Canada Lee's Othello... It was heaven. And Sawyer Falk was such a brilliant man with a gentle guiding hand. It was the best training of my life."

College Theatre

Rex Partington as Robert Browning in THE BARRETTS OF WHIMPOLE STREET

"Miss Barrett, do you remember the first letter I wrote to you? ...I weighed every word of every sentence, and of one sentence in particular. This sentence; 'I love your books with all my heart, and I love you too.'" (Robert Browning)